Claim to Fame
by helixist
Summary: Cloud Strife is part of the stage crew for chart topping rock band, SOLDIER, but dreams of becoming a great musician. Sephiroth is the dark and mysterious lead guitarist of Cloud's dreams. Rockstar AU
1. Starstruck

Cloud's heart raced as he stood under the dazzling lights, flashing and spiraling above his head. Never had the blonde been so overwhelmed, and it was obvious to those watching. His mouth was gaping, his cerulean eyes as wide as bright blue planets, reflecting a sun in some far away galaxy as he continued to stare across the rows upon rows of seats. Sweat began to drip from his forehead, moistening the back of his black t-shirt, the heat from the spotlights burning into him, physically and emotionally, pushing him forward to the microphone—

"Hey, Spike," a crass southern voice called through the small black headset attached to the nineteen-year-old's ear, "You gonna stand there all day like a little girl or are you going to get that mic set up, we got s%!# to do here, a show to run, a bird to get in the air. Don't fuck up or it's on me."

It was the first day of the teen's new job, in cliché terms, the first day of his future. He was going to make it to this stage one day. Not just as a roadie, but as the real deal. He was hardly even a roadie anyway, he was the "Here, do this somewhat degrading task for me" kid. Setting up the mic was the first actually tech related task he'd been trusted with and oh, it felt great.

"And I want a coffee so after you're done with that you're on doughnut duty."

"I'm on it, Cid," Cloud mumbled, blinking to get the spots out of his eyes as he quickly got to work setting up the mic. He was the tech guy for his own band that had 'temporarily' disbanded the past summer for the pursuit of greater things, a.k.a. most of his friends going to university. It just wasn't easy to find a replacement singer for a rock band in a small mountain town, let alone a drummer. Tifa had gotten into some fancy private school and Barrett was on an athletic scholarship to University of Cosmo Canyon, which left him on bass and Yuffie on keys. If it was even possible for one of them to sing, he doubt he'd want to spend that much time with Yuffie alone, who'd been lucky enough to score a job in town (entirely due to her father's influence) and was going to community college.

So Cloud Strife, a failure of a student, without a mayor for a father, or even a father at all, to offer him an easy job, went in to the music industry due to a huge favor from a family friend. Music was really the only thing he could say he was good at, his only good grades in school being in Guitar and Tech Theater.

The band was called SOLDIER. Chart topping, multi-platinum band, SOLDIER, who Cloud had been quietly obsessed with since their first, not so famous album. Quietly obsessed meaning he kept his poster of lead guitarist, Sephiroth Jenova, safely tucked away from the prying eyes of his nosey mother.

"Cloud! Get on that damn coffee!" Cid shouted again in his ear.

"Yes, sir." It wasn't that Cloud minded being on coffee duty. It wasn't exactly trouble to go and buy doughnuts, but he did want to contribute to the show in a more. . .technical way. He hopped down from the stage, and set out across the vast concrete floor of the stadium. _The signal in here is bull shit_ , Cloud thought to himself, attempting to look up the closest chain coffee shop. He jogged quickly up to the front entrance of the stadium where cell service was most abundant, finding and calling a number for a 'Coffee King.' "Hello, I'd like to make a pick up order for Highwind." The cashier spoke on the other end of the line, asking about the order. "Um, do you guys sell those big, sharing sized coffee things? Yeah, one of those and like two dozen assorted doughnuts."

"That'll take like fifteen minutes, I think," the cashier mumbled and a loud voice, who Cloud presumed what was the guy's boss scolded him for being 'so damn wishy-washy.' "I mean, it's definitely going to be fifteen minutes. No question. It will also definitely be 260 gil"

"Cool, thanks." Cloud hung up just as the cashier was told to stop being a sarcastic piece of shit. It was almost every day that he acknowledged his immense luck at not having to work an annoying job like that for the rest of his life. At least he didn't get forced into working as an engineer at the reactor because there sure as hell weren't a lot of other options in his small, hick town. If your family didn't have a trade, then you weren't going into a trade, and his mom worked as a waitress at the local pub.

"Zachary Fair, get back here right now, I'm not finished talking to you!" Cloud quickly spun around to see the bassist of SOLDIER rounding the corner of the concessions area, seemingly quite terrified.

"It's just a scraped knee I really don't need you to fix it or anything, really!" The spikey, black haired man stopped for a second, looking for a place to run, his frantic eyes locking with Cloud's. And then he was off again, this time in the techie's direction. His knee was bleeding pretty badly, probably from running with it, but nothing that would require much attention. Zack stopped short just in front of Cloud, bending over to catch his breath before standing up to stick out his hand.

"Zack Fair, bass guitar, the occasional cowbell, and backup vocals, pleasure to make your acquaintance, now super quick could you do me a favor and tell the black haired guy in glasses that is most likely right behind me that you're new and therefore need his help, um, being aware of emergency medical protocols. Just make something up. Please it's a matter of life and death." Cloud stood, quietly stunned for several seconds before shaking the man's hand.

"Cloud Strife, coffee boy, nice to meet you. Why don't you want to talk to him though?

"He's totally sadist when it comes to patching me up, man. I just need to rinse it off and throw a Band-Aid on it, but he'll drown it in rubbing alcohol and insist that he do it again in another hour. He's in charge of first aid and emergency stuff, but he's evil!"

"I'm standing right here, Zack. You know it's rude to call people evil behind their back." Cloud jumped right into action with getting Zack out of his dilemma. Cloud hated nothing more than going to the doctor, so he could understand.

"Sir, I'm new here and I think it's important that all members of the crew to be aware of what to do in case of a medical emergency, could you show tell me where all the first aid stations are in this specific arena?"

"Nice try, Strife. He's tried that one before." The teen shot the bassist an apologetic look, but he was busy glancing behind them at a pretty girl in a light blue dress. She rolled her eyes, obviously already knowing the situation.

"Hojo, it's alright. I'll take care of him this time," she said patting Zack on the shoulder. "I don't think we've met yet, Cloud. I'm Aeris." _Do people on huge shows like this always know each other's names?_ Cloud pondered to himself. As if to answer his internal question, Aeris pulled out a clipboard and checked Cloud's name off a list. "You're going to be on Van Three with Jesse, Reno, Rude, and Elena. It's the security van, so there are some pretty strong personalities, I hope you'll be able to put up with their drama.

"Oh, yeah. Sure." The woman's calming demeanor was already affecting Cloud, clearing his head and leaving him entirely at ease. "I can put up with pretty much anything."

"Great! I had a feeling that you'd be easy to work with. This one sure isn't," she gestured to Zack who was now sitting on the ground, poking the scrape on his knee. "Zack, stop touching it or I'm going to have to put the alcohol on it," she mentioned looking at him with a slightly dismayed expression, this had very obviously happened before.

Cloud glanced at his watch, his mind wandering from the situation at hand, if he took the highway he could probably get the doughnuts in half an hour, but he still needed to go get money from Cid, who'd probably make him do something else before he went. Consumed in his thoughts, Cloud failed to notice the rest of the quiet bickering going on between Zack and Aeris. Hojo had slipped away to do whatever he needed to do, and the rest of the lights and sound crew was busy shuffling around, setting up the stage for the night's show. The stadium was practically silent except for the echoing steps of the occasional stage hand and Zack and Aeris's arguing, which was slowly devolving into flirtatious banter.

Cloud was about to announce his departure, when two very recognizable men came through the front door, obviously in some form of heated debate.

"You've got to be kidding me, Genesis, my solo has to stay. It's the best part of the song, if we leave it out, we might as well just not play the song at all. Take out one of your shitty ballads if you're worried about time."

"The fans love acoustic sets, it makes the concert more intimate."

"We all know how intimate you like to get with the fans Gen, you don't need to elaborate," Zack burst in, probably attempting to dispel the threatening aura that the silver-haired guitarist was exuding. "Seph, Genesis, this is Cloud. He's new."

Cloud tried futilely to disguise the fact that he was having trouble breathing as Genesis reached out a hand to take his own. "Very nice to meet you, Cloud. What a beautiful name…" Genesis purred as he brought the younger man's hand near to his lips. Cloud blushed from the sudden proximity to the famous stranger, but his attention was fixated beyond. Genesis was a notorious playboy in every meaning of the word, and he was as indiscriminant as any could get when it came to sexuality.

Behind him, Sephiroth scoffed, "Great, another groupie to make your head even bigger than it already is." He hardly even glanced at Cloud, other than to cast an irritated glare at him and Genesis before he stormed back down the hall.


	2. Undeniable

Chapter 2: Undeniable

If Cloud's day could have gotten worse after his little brush with stardom, it did. Coffee King's 'assorted doughnuts' didn't include Boston Crème. They were out. If there was anything he needed in his life after he was practically called a harlot by his idol, it was a Boston Crème doughnut. "I am not a groupie," Cloud mumbled as he pushed the stage door open with his hip, his arms filled with doughnuts that all had holes. Just like his heart.

Zack had tried to comfort his new friend immediately after the incident, but the blond simply had no desire to talk to anyone. Genesis had left following Sephiroth, giving Cloud a flirtatious wink, an action which thoroughly confused the younger man, and Aeris cast him a sympathetic smile before she turned away to return to work. He was sure the band members cared about each other in some absurd way, but God forbid they act like normal people. Maybe that was just a difference between country and city people. Cloud set off to pick up the coffee deep in thought and attempting to keep Sephiroth's words from truly reaching him. Surely, he wasn't actually that mean, he was probably just in a bad mood.

The stage was mostly clear as he entered, only a few people were visible. They were checking the mechanisms for the fancier stage functions and effects, while the lighting crew was scattered along the catwalk doing a preliminary run through. It was almost four o'clock, just an hour before the band was due to go on for their scheduled sound check. The serenity of an empty venue before a show, even with people making last minute preparations was astonishing and the urge to sprint across an empty floor always struck Cloud more than most. Like an empty school hallway at night, the cool concrete floor begged for his bare feet and cartwheels. He spent a lot of time sitting outside classrooms for parent-teacher conferences in elementary school, where the long familiar corridors, so bright during the day grew quiet and mysterious with the setting sun. It was easy to imagine the school as something else: an abandoned warehouse or a corporate laboratory, home to evil corrupt scientists that lurked within the chemistry classrooms. The mission was to get in and out unnoticed and as fast as possible. The more his teachers wanted him to sit still and learn to be a student, the more he acted out, withdrawing away from school and reality into the world of his dreams, fed by good old violent television and rock and roll. Cloud had a nagging feeling the first day on tour wasn't exactly the best time to make a huge spectacle of himself, more than he already had. The rest of the crew was bound to think he was more than a little bit off his rocker if he took his shoes off and started performing impromptu gymnastics in the middle of the venue.

Brushing off his desire to make a fool of himself, he made his way to where several crew members were gathered backstage, placing the doughnuts down on a small table with the coffee that he had brought in earlier. Small talk, pre-show anxiety, and the sorting of last minute tasks filled the echoing room as Cloud retreated casually to the corner, finding a cluster of plastic folding chairs. He didn't feel like being social just yet, so he pulled up a game on his phone.

"You know, Sephiroth is very . . . defensive about a lot of things, Cloud. I would take everything he says with a grain of salt." Cloud jumped, dropping his phone into his lap. He hadn't noticed her approach, but Aeris was sitting politely in a chair across from him, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, her bright green eyes prodding at his soul as his blue ones locked with them. "He holds his friends and his emotions very close to his chest. Genesis seems to try to go against him in every way that he can, but he probably has good intentions."

"So, you're the tour therapist as well?" Cloud joked. Her laugh in response was a chorus of bells to his ears.

"I guess you could say that. I care very deeply for everyone on this tour, and you, I feel like I've known you for a very long time. You're going to fit in perfectly with all these rock star boys. You better help me keep track of them, they get into a lot of trouble." Again, the aura surrounding them was pure contentment. Very little of the restlessness Cloud felt earlier remained, just what pertained to Sephiroth's seeming dislike of him.

"Other than that thing this afternoon, I've felt welcome here. Zack's a good guy, Genesis will take some getting used to . . . the crew is great." He had met his van mates earlier and they seemed likable. Maybe a little intense, but definitely people he could see himself getting along with. Rude hadn't said much, all Cloud had gotten out of him was a curt "hello," and a nod, but Reno dove straight into telling the newbie how close the whole crew was, praising Aeris for her "bomb ass managing skills." He joked about how they were the only rock band ever to have a young, cute, friendly, slightly preppy, lady manager, but she got the job done like nobody's business. She also played 'the mom friend' for the band most days, patching up their wounds and mediating conflicts.

The loud clatter of a cymbal falling from the drum set caused them both to wince as a voice that sounded a lot like Zack's called out, "Aeris! Sound check." Another voice, unfamiliar to Cloud, but obviously very accustomed to the bassist's antics muttered something about Frisbees and improper use of musical equipment. Aeris rolled her eyes.

"Zack, really . . . focus," the stern voice commanded, quite a bit louder.

"Angeal does try," Aeris sighed. _Angeal?_ Cloud thought, _the drummer._ He had read somewhere that Angeal had actually taught Zack everything about music theory and practice, he'd been a mentor or something. "I need all the help I can get to keep Zack from hurting himself, or the building, or the equipment . . ." The girl let just a sliver of exasperation show through in the look she gave her new friend. It was only fair, since she could practically read the boy's mind. Cloud was also awful at masking his emotions, his eyes telling every story anyone would want to get out of him. Sephiroth was still occupying a large part of his attention and he could see the man now, tuning his guitar on the other side of the stage. So cruel it was to be in the presence of greatness when the space between them seemed greater than when Cloud was back home. He'd imagined their meeting to be quite different: the fantasies changed from week to week. All of them less than appropriate for a work environment, but he had a feeling several of the band members disregarded that rule of professionalism quite often. Being a professional kind of gets thrown out the window when screaming fans and people practically living in vans are involved.

The manager, in her pink blouse and khaki skinny jeans, rose and started to walk away, only to turn back and look at Cloud over her shoulder. "You could try talking to him if it would ease your mind?"

Cloud gawked at her briefly, unable to fully register that it _would_ actually be possible to just speak with Sephiroth. He seemed more like a god than human to the young man; Cloud had idolized him since he was twelve. It was so direct and mature to seek out a conversation, something that Cloud generally wasn't. He was shy and reserved, self-conscious of how awkward he normally was and overly sarcastic with people he knew well. Strangely, Aeris now fell into that latter category, but Sephiroth was very much still a complete stranger. An intimidating, attractive stranger who already hated his guts. Aeris was gone and along with her, his sense of calm, so Cloud made a hasty retreat from the stage area to the sound booth to ask for a task to distract him.

"I can't believe you Sephiroth. If we had an HR department, I swear . . . That was out of line." Angeal paced behind the stage curtain as his friend focused on twisting the pegs on the head of his favorite guitar, pointedly ignoring the other man. "I know Genesis can be over the top sometimes, but that doesn't give you an excuse to abuse our crew. He's just a kid."

"Hm," Sephiroth nodded dismissively, clearly uninterested in pursuing the subject further. He really didn't need drama over a child distracting him. How old was the kid anyway, like fifteen? "I don't really care, I just want to play this show."

"You're going to talk to me eventually, you've been in a foul mood all day and if this is how this whole tour is going to be. . .Well, there's no way in Hell I'm putting up with three straight months of an angsty guitarist _and_ a nympho lead singer." Sephiroth knew his more reasonable best friend wasn't the type to bail, he was probably implying the looming need for the two of them to have a go at trying to bust each other's faces open, like they tended to do when things got tough on tour. It helped let off steam and cleared the air. He didn't have a problem with Angeal though, it wasn't him who he wanted to fight. The more he thought about it, it wasn't Genesis either, or even his cute new boy toy, although just the thought of the blond stage hand made him inexplicably grumpy and inexplicably confused as to why.

"I'm not going to apologize, if that's what you want from me."

"I don't want anything from you right now, I just wanted you to think about it. You can talk to me later if you want to." Angeal pulled a set of drumsticks from his back pocket, rotating them absentmindedly in his hand. "Don't do anything dumb or dickish without me being there to fix it for you, okay. This lack of your usual ego is unsettling, to say the least."

The two men turned to face the stage as the foul sound of a fallen cymbal echoed through the empty space, disrupting their mostly one-sided conversation. "Oops," Zack muttered before calling out as if his dropping the musical equipment was some kind of cue, "Aeris! Sound check!"

"He's a smart kid, but I'd appreciate if he was able to go a day without breaking something. It wouldn't kill him to treat the equipment with a little more respect, maybe not use my cymbals as Frisbees," the drummer said to his moody friend.

"Zack, really . . . focus," he called from the side of the stage. It was easy to admire their youngest member's gusto, Angeal just wished it cost them less in repair and replacement fees.

Sephiroth chuckled slightly, lightening the mood only enough to get the other off his back temporarily, gigs usually distracted him enough anyway. He stood and walked over to his side of the stage, placing his guitar ever-so-gently in its stand. _We'll go for drinks after and I'll probably get just a little drunk_ , he thought, glancing out over his mic making an attempt at some sort of composure. That was until he spotted Cloud, shoes in hand, sprinting barefoot to the sound booth, his lean, athletic legs, accented by his tight black jeans. Legs that Sephiroth could not deny he had noticed. _And that undeniably attractive blond won't cross my mind at all_. Hell, he admitted to himself, was where he and Genesis were going in a handbasket.


End file.
